


Kill It All Away

by InFamousHero



Category: Elder Scrolls Online
Genre: Canon-Typical Violence, Casual Sex, F/F, Female Anti-Hero, Flash Fic, Implied/Referenced Abuse, Mental Health Issues, Psychological Trauma, Resurrection, Temporary Character Death, Vampires, main quest
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-05-09
Updated: 2019-12-02
Packaged: 2020-02-28 22:30:06
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 17
Words: 11,764
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18765568
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/InFamousHero/pseuds/InFamousHero
Summary: Elanna Delcraine can't decide if she's the luckiest mer alive or just the opposite. After all, getting captured moment's after escaping a terrible situation and sacrificed to a daedric prince isn't exactly what one might consider an improvement. But something inside her has always refused to yield, pushing her from the hateful chains of Coldharbour and towards a chance at redefining herself and her place in the world...[A collection of shorts and drabbles aiming to detail parts of ESO's plot from vanilla to Elsweyr] - [Errors will be caught as and when they can][The Graphic Violence is used sparingly]





	1. The Vestige

She awakened screaming, like an infant first experiencing a world of bitter cold and savage, biting pain. Though she felt it deeply, grasping at her chest revealed no hole and Elanna blinked, sucking in grateful, confused breaths. She was whole—she wasn’t. Something was wrong, something was _missing_ but what, what was—

“I hope you’ve got some fight in you to go with those lungs.”

Elanna lifted her head, staring up at a towering Nord woman with piercing eyes. Her stare felt heavy and Elanna struggled to swallow against the tension building in her throat. Flashes of memory flitted through her mind, battle stretching from horizon to horizon, an undulating sea of clashing metal, the booming, sizzling explosion of magic streaking across a dark, stormy sky—the stench of blood and bowels.

She touched her throat where the flesh was grazed. A band of scraped skin. She checked her wrists and found the same. No, there wasn’t a hole in her chest but she felt a depression. The skin was tender, it ached under her fingers.

A flash of metal, the knife plunging into her body and the hard, abrasive stone against her back. His face, that cold, cruel sneering face staring down at her. Her blood flowed hot across her skin and her entire being tore at the seams, a pain she couldn’t describe.

Elanna blinked, gripping her throat.

“Where am I…?” she croaked.

The woman reached out a hand and Elanna took it without thinking, allowing herself to be hauled to her feet. “Coldharbour,” the woman said frankly, “well, a part of it anyway. The important thing right now is there’s a chance to get out of here. Do you want to escape or not?”

Her surroundings were harsh, icy blue stone and ash everywhere, metal fixtures, bladed, jutting in hostile directions—a prison crueller than any she’d ever seen. The sheer hatred infused into every surface soured the air, prickled her skin.

Elanna swallowed hard and nodded. The woman smiled stiffly, “good, name’s Lyris. Yours?”

It took a moment for her to remember. “My… my name is Elanna.”

Lyris nodded, “lets go then, we don’t have a lot of time.”

Elanna followed numbly, picking up a fallen prison warden’s sword as she went. Combat came back surprisingly quick, reflexes, instinct, _experience_ , it was all still there, filtering through the haze of death and purgatory, this frigid limbo she found herself in. Elanna tried not to focus on any one thing for too long.

The image of an old, old man materialised before them, blocking a heavy iron door. He spoke knowingly, addressing them, addressing _Elanna_ and calling her ‘Vestige,’ she wondered what he meant but took no time to process it. She couldn’t, not here. And then he was gone. She had her questions, of course, and Lyris gave her what she needed to know. There was an important man who could get them out of here, and he needed rescuing. Beyond that, Elanna couldn’t find the space to breathe or care. But, there was on _one_ thing gnawing on her mind. “Why am I here? What… happened to me?”

Lyris crossed her arms with a grim look. “You’re dead.”

The words felt like a punch in the gut. Elanna looked at Lyris, dazed. “How am I…? Then how are we talking? Who did this to me?”

“The first part, I don’t know, you’d need to ask the Prophet. As for the second, it was a man named Mannimarco. His Worm Cult is doing some kind of ritual back in Tamriel. They sacrificed you, and everyone in this prison, to the Daedric Prince Molag Bal. After you died, whatever was left showed up here. They call you the Soul Shriven.”

“So I’m stuck here…”

“Not if you come with me.”

Elanna blinked slowly,  trying to take in the answer. “If I’m dead, are you?”

Lyris shook her head, “no, I’m still a prisoner, so is the Prophet, but we came here… conventionally.”

It was too much to take in at once. Elanna rubbed her brow and tried to calm her breathing. “Let’s… let’s keep going.”


	2. Bleakrock

_ “You are but a trace of your former self. A soulless one. An empty vessel that longs to be filled.” _

The words rattled around her skull as she stepped outside into the snow-swept village of Bleakrock Isle. Sun glared off the white landscape and she breathed deeply of pine and sea salt. It felt like the first real breath she’d taken in a lifetime.

However long she’d been asleep, the images of Coldharbour, Lyris, and the Daedric Prince himself, all of it hounded her nightmares. She kept coming back to that moment on the altar, the knife plunging into her chest, her soul, the very essence of her being torn out of her body like a shucked oyster.

Elanna shivered and told herself it was the cold, rubbing her arms. 

Helping people, she could do that. Earn some favours, perhaps, favours she could do, understand, earning favour was easy. Stab some things, steal some things, frame someone, her old life was filtering back to her minute by minute. Not all of it she wanted.

Stuck in her body, rigid, obeying, killing on command, talking only at his behest, the eyes, he could see through her eyes.

She shook her head roughly and exhaled a short, harsh breath. The Captain, Rana, wanted her to warn people, send them back to the village when she found them. She could do that. It was something to focus on. Something,  _ anything else _ , to focus on.


	3. Marked

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Freedom has long been a concept out of Elanna's reach, now is no different...

Elanna couldn’t remember the last time she was able to walk freely, without the pressure of someone watching her every move, whispering into her ear, _forcing her hand._  She huffed a vaporous breath and opened her eyes to the snowy landscape of Bleakrock, perched on a timeworn ledge overlooking the southern fjord within which the villagers built their home. Even in such a simple place troubles rose from the drifts, crags, and caves, troubles she dealt with dutifully and with fast returning confidence. It was good to feel a bow in her hands again.

She returned lost hunters to their rightful forms, rescued an idiot brother from an irritating ghost, and the tomb-bound dead were quiet, placated—for now.

A chill slithered up the back of her neck at the thought of necromancy so soon after Coldharbour.

She rubbed her eyes and brow when flashes of cold fire, chains and writhing, mangled bodies reaching out, wailing, ran through her mind. Between it all the Shriven stared unblinking, twitching every now and then when some vague remnant of who they used to be stirred something ultimately immaterial in them.

That could have been her. Forever. Her life would have ended there, another body churned beneath the boots of clashing armies and no one would know or care about her passing. But then, no one was left to care.

Elanna rubbed the heel of her hand against her breastbone. Even with the aetherial shards, she was able to find in this troubled time the gaping emptiness was still there, more pronounced than ever as if all she was doing was call attention to it. The fact that only she seemed to see the shards made her difference all the more glaring.

She wasn’t free.

The white-hot and cold sensation of a dagger plunging into her heart forced her to her feet, nails digging into the skin of her chest, clawing at the space where flesh should be split and blood gushing. But again, there was nothing, nothing more than a slight depression.

Elanna grunted and jumped from her perch. She wasted time trying to take a moment to breathe while there were still people to find, things to do.

She could breathe when she wasn’t needed for something.


	4. Malaise

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> During the attack on Bleakrock, Elanna discovers something deeply troubling...

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> CONTENT WARNING: Gore.

The laughter was what really set her stomach aflame, peals of cruelty caught on the hot air of burning homes, mingled with the wails of the dying. 

Smoke billowed into the night air, scattered by stiff northern breezes, and Elanna rushed from home to home, blades slick with blood. She saved who she could, killed the soldiers who got in her way or threatened villagers running for their lives, but there were so many bodies already. Blood stained the snow in a hundred different ways, scattered, pooling, smeared between rushing footprints and outstretched hands reaching for a fallen loved one as life left them.

A battlemage stood stark against the blaze of a farmhouse, pouring twin streams of hungry flame into the broken doorway—Elanna’s sharp hearing could pick out the screams within. 

The stench of death and blood, the sounds of fear and pain, the rising anger within her that burned as ravenously as the fires around her. A furious impulse overtook her body and Elanna rushed the battle mage, loosing a guttural, ragged snarl from her throat. 

The mage turned too late.

Elanna lunged, hitting them with her full weight and taking them to the icy ground. They struggled, panicking, and Elanna wrenched their head to the side. She brought her teeth down on their neck, biting hard into warm, yielding flesh. It tore and popped between her jaws, flooding her mouth with hot blood that somewhere deep within burgeoning instincts told her was vital, convinced her she needed more than anything.

The body underneath her went limp and Elanna slowly lifted her head, dazed.

The mage was a Breton woman, eyes staring half-shut at nothing. Blood stained the top of her robes, smeared across her neck, jaw and cheek, and pooled messily in the snow around her neck and shoulder.

Copper sat heavy on Elanna’s tongue and she shivered, frantically wiping her mouth.

It was still there. It followed her through death, through Coldharbour—the infection was still there.

Elanna screamed and slammed a fist against the dead mage’s chest. If there was one thing she hoped to leave behind in this ordeal it was that. The lingering remains of infection after infection treated again and again until her body simply stopped responding to treatments. There was nothing left for it and it was  _ still _ with her.

The approaching footfall of another Covenant soldier forced her to her feet. It was all she could do to fight.


	5. Weary

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Elanna feels like she hasn't stopped between the attack on Bleakrock and defending Davon's Watch, and even momentary respite seems out of the question...

Balreth's skeletal bulk seared against the frigid, cobalt backdrop of Coldharbour, bellowing to the sky, fire spraying between his jagged teeth. Soul Shriven flailed and scattered around him, skin peeling, the rags wrapped around their withered bodies disintegrating in seconds. Smoke swirled in a cold wind and the screams of the dying came with a chorus of rattling chains, rattling,  _rumbling_ , the Prince's laughter roared above it all.

" _Vestige!_ "

Elanna jerked into consciousness, grabbing the dagger under her pillow and scrambling into an upright position on the thin bed of her tiny room. A glassy, ephemereal figure stood before her, calmly holding a staff at his side, a ragged hood pulled over his equally ragged mop of hair and ageing features. He stared through her for a long moment as she regained her breath and bearings, and she let her outstretched arm drop into her lap. 

She mustn't have slept long, it was still dark out and it was already very late when she finally dragged her flagging carcass to a tavern by the docks and paid for a night in their cheapest room. 

"What is it?" she muttered, rubbing her eyes.

The Prophet straightened and seemed to focus his sightless gaze on her. "I have located a safe harbour from which we might plan our course of action. By the ash in the air and the sounds of strife, the Harbourage just west of Davon's Watch in an ancient daedric ruin. Long since abandoned but not impossible to find."

"Now...?"

"Pardon?"

"I've barely had a moment's rest since I woke up on Bleakrock."

His lips creased into a thin line. "Few can afford to rest in these troubled times, Vestige. Molag Bal must be stopped and longer he remains unopposed the harder it will be to do so. Please, come to the Harbourage so we might discuss this in person. You can rest here if you wish, but we must form a plan, and soon."

Elanna slowly rubbed her brow, trying to dissuade the beginnings of a headache from forming. She breathed deeply and sighed a quiet, "fine."

With that, the Prophet faded from view, leaving her alone once more in the small, dark room that now held no more comfort than a cell.


	6. Proving Trust

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> On her way south of Davon's Watch, Elanna encounters the struggling people of Senie...

With a deft twist of her blade and a squirt of foul-smelling shalk ichor, Elanna pried away the last piece of chitin she could reasonably carry. It had to be more than enough for this ‘Soft-Scale’ to make his salve and she knew that harvesting shalk for their parts would be the easiest part of this little crisis.

Senie and its people were caught in a volcanic eruption, some were already dead, shalk moved on the survivors, and still, the dunmer amongst them held their pride and false sense of superiority above their own lives. It wasn’t something that surprised Elanna, she found her people painfully predictable in such matters, much like many altmer.

She tried to keep her mind from wandering too far from the task at hand. She didn’t want to end up stepping on ground hot enough to burn her through the soles of her boots.

The Prophet had nothing for her but visions of events since passed, convinced she needed to know what happened, had to understand what got her and the rest of the world into this nightmare in order to resolve it. She could’ve done without it. She could’ve done without seeing Mannimarco’s face again. 

Now she had faces to pin her anger to, even if they weren’t entirely at fault. She couldn’t fault them for not realising an ally would betray them, though Lyris seemed wiser to such things than the others. She was right to mistrust him.

Elanna shook her head and pulled her thoughts back to the smouldering wreckage around her. She pressed on, delivering the chitin to Soft-Scale where he sheltered the injured in the burnt-out remains of a small house. Blackened stone walls kept them out of sight of prowling shalk.

The argonian turned to her with a bundle of fresh poultice, holding it out to her.

“You will have to apply it to the injured you come across.”

“The dunmeri survivors, you mean?”

Soft-Scale’s tail swerved behind him and he cocked his head. “Yes… they do not trust us, especially not me and my egg-sister, Walks-In-Ash. They fear we’ll harm them. But you are one of them, so they should allow it.”

Elanna sighed and took the bundle. “I’ll see what I can do.”

Soft-Scale held up his hand. “Wait, when you are done, find Spellwright Girvas. Let him know we made this salve to help. Perhaps he will see we are not his enemy.”

A sour taste snaked at the back of her tongue and Elanna grimaced. “I will,” she said curtly and left to find those in need.

Survivors weren’t hard to find as she moved uphill, some buildings remained untouched and perfect to take shelter in, and being no stranger to medicine or its applications, Elanna treated the burns of scared and shaken people with practiced efficiency.

Not a single one of them questioned her motives, where she came from, all she had to do was say she could help and the face she wore did the rest. She could have killed any of them, taken their belongings, brushed it off as the shalk, and she’d done such things before. Framed murders as accidents, indirect killing, subtle poisons, the complete destruction of a body, all manner of ways to muddy the investigative waters.

But they would never know that.

Nonetheless, she used up all the salve she was given and found her way to the Spellwright, sheltering in a shed with two other dunmer who looked more like farmhands, removed from the Spellwright’s social strata.

“Why are you here, stranger?” Girvas bristled at her as she entered, eyes narrowed, taking in her appearance from head to toe and finding nothing he seemed to like.

She lifted her hands peaceably, no matter how futile the gesture would be, appearances counted for something she told herself. “I healed your people with a salve made by Soft-Scale, he sent me to you after I was done using his medicine.”

A sneer curled his age-worn features into an ugly visage. “That scale-back? I kept my tongue when times were good, but now when the town is weakened, he’s suddenly helpful? This is just a trick.”

Elanna dropped her hands. “Your people are suffering, some of them are already dead and feeding the shalk but you refuse to trust Soft-Scale. Why?”

“Because his people have taken my daughter, Morvani! She was doing chores for me, and now she’s disappeared. One of the farmsteaders saw that Argonian Walks-In-Ash watching her. Who else could it be?”

“From the sounds of things, a lot of people have gone missing because of the eruption, your daughter could be no different.”

“Nonsense. We’ve lived in the shadow of Ash Mountain all our lives. We know its dangers. It was those Argonian savages.”

It took some reserve to bite down an acidic response but Elanna clenched her jaws tight. “Why don’t I find Walks-In-Ash and clear this up?”

Grivas crossed his arms. “I was about to suggest that. Find that Scale-back and ask her where my daughter is. You should find her in the ruins further down the road.”

Another urge to hold back. Elanna didn’t give him another word and turned on her heel.

* * *

It was ultimately a trivial thing to not only find Walks-In-Ash but locate the missing daughter, caught on the low lying ground of a shrine to the Three when the eruption came. Elanna could clear the gap and just barely avoid being instantly burned to a crisp thanks to her heritage, but magma was magma all the same.

She gave Morvani the water she had and sent up the flare, drawing both Walks-In-Ash and Grivas to the location.

Watching the Spellwright walk away with his daughter safe and sound wasn’t an image Elanna could take that much comfort in. 

Hatred was often cyclical, someone’s family is slaughtered by the enemy, so they slaughter a family of the enemy, and back, and forth until all each side sees are monsters, irredeemable, without virtue, emotion, or dignity.

The Spellwright’s Wife was an innocent, perhaps, but just another dark elf to the argonians, and dark elves were the monsters, ripping apart villages, families, lives, and none of it because the argonians did anything first to deserve it but because the dunmer  _ could _ . Because the dunmer convinced themselves that it was charitable, that they were kind and generous to ‘uplift’ the ‘savages’ from squatting in swamp shacks and sunken temples.

As if ripping away another being’s freedom could ever be justified.

Elanna breathed slowly and rubbed her wrists, trying not to remember the pain of metal biting into her flesh, rubbing it raw in a struggle she couldn’t avoid. The pain made it difficult to stay still, he never did use any kind of numbing agent. It was too good for her, he would say.

She shook her head roughly. 

She had more urgent business to attend.


	7. Quieting A Heart

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Elanna runs into Bala while trying to figure out how to deal with the Brothers of Strife and the cruel man who tricked her...

"There's no challenge in terrorising servants," Eanen sneered, lifting his chin at her. "I wanted to crush someone's  _dreams_ , so I convinced her that I was desperately in love." He scoffed, sharing a cruel smile with his wife. "I even said I would leave my wife. Could you imagine? A nobleman with a  _savage_ such as her _?_ Pah!"

A mix of emotions swirled through Elanna, each sharper and colder than the last. The two spirits chuckled at the rage hardening her face and her jaw set tightly, clenching with her hands. When she couldn't find her voice quickly enough, Eanen tried to shoo her away like he would a fly. "What are you waiting for, simpleton? Go, tell her you found me. Say that I'm still passionate for her." Another sadistic smile curled his lips, matched by his wife. "Godyna and I will have a _delightful_ time watching her heart shatter."

Elanna moved without thinking, instinctively calling a ravenous, otherworldly power to her hands as she closed one around Eanen's neck and held him as if he were a physical being. He jolted, pain wracking his features, all mirth abandoned. Godyna flinched, shock overtaking her features as she watched Elanna force her husband to his knees. Elanna gave her no attention for now and started down at the struggling nobleman pawing at her wrist to no avail. "Unhand me! You--you're not worthy of touching _me_!" he spat, fruitless in his attempts to wriggle away.

The soul magic wasn't something Elanna was used to but the Prophet explained it to her all the same. Her unique circumstances seemed to open something inside her, allowing her access to powerful magic as if she were recalling old memories. She'd found it useful against spirits already, allowing her to cut through them like flesh and blood creatures.

This seemed as good a use as any.

While Godyna stood transfixed, Elanna grabbed her by the back of the neck, causing her to flinch again.

"Stop!" Godyna snapped, rigid in her grip.

"Did he?" Elanna asked without looking at her. "Did  _you_?"

Godyna opened her mouth only for Eanen to scream as Elanna began to drain his essence. His translucent form fractured, a slow-moving spiritual rot that reduced him piece by piece to granular ectoplasm in the ash. He flailed, clawing uselessly at Elanna's arm, then at Godyna, as if she had any power to save him. He couldn't form words, not in that amount of pain, not as his very being dissolved.

Squirming, Godyna looked away and Elanna sent a jolt of spiritual pain through her. "Don't you fucking dare," she hissed.

Distress twisted Godyna's features as her husband's face began to crack. "Wh-what about our descendants?! This is heresy, you can't do this!"

Elanna sent her a withering glare and quickly drained the last of  Eanen's essence, completely shattering his spirit and leaving him as nothing more than a pile of ethereal, inanimate sand. Godyna shrieked, reaching for what was left, but Elanna kept her standing straight and growled, "what a shame." 

Putting both hands on the noblewoman, Elanna drained her far faster than her husband and watched Godyna's face contort in a plethora of agonised screams just as Eanen's did.

 

"There you are!" Bala called, standing by the road a short ways from the burial ground's entrance. "Did you find him?" she asked, furtively wringing her hands.

"Yes," Elanna sighed, gesturing for Bala to sit down. Bala frowned at her but complied, sitting on a worn-down boulder. "Well? Wh-where is he? What did he say?" She kept wringing her hands and looked down at them, a tremor overtaking her body. "Azura, I miss him _so much_."

Her eyes stung and Elanna wiped them, clearing her throat. She knelt and gently took Bala's shaking hands in her own, waiting until Bala met her gaze. There was so much fear and hope in Bala's eyes, wet as they were, and Elanna knew the next few minutes would be ugly. 

With a deep breath, Elanna finally spoke and carefully tightened her grip on Bala. "Before I explain, I want to tell you a story. It'll make sense."

Bala's brow pinched in confusion but she nodded all the same, and Elanna continued to hold her stare. "I was born an Ashlander, just like you. But I don't know my tribe, or any of 'our' ways because my mother died when I was an infant. She died on the road when a group of young noblemen crossed her path."

Tension scrunched Bala's shoulders and Elanna swallowed the growing ache in her throat. "See, to House mer, especially the nobles, we're just savages, animals,  _vermin_ to be pushed out or exterminated.  We don't matter to them. At best, we're things to toy with, and that's how those nobles saw my mother. They beat her, called her a savage, and laughed as they kicked her to the ground, all the while she held me to her chest. She curled her body over mine and died protecting me."

Hot tears spilt down her cheeks and Elanna swallowed hard. "Those noblemen stole my mother, my culture, my identity. I don't know her name, or what she called me, what tribe I'm from, and because of them, because they saw my mother as just another ashlander  _savage_ to do _whatever_ they wanted to I ended up in the care of a Three-loving alcoholic  _coward_ who blamed all his fucking problems on taking in an ashlander orphan." 

Bala looked away, tears flowing freely. Elanna squeezed her hands. "You know what I'm getting at, Bala. They  _don't_ see us as people. Eanen was  _lying_ , he was a monster who lured you in with an _act_  and took advantage of you."

She tried to pull away but Elanna held tight and moved one hand to her shoulder. "No! Y-you can't be... you're not..." Bala sobbed and twisted her head away, nails digging into Elanna's hand. "I don't believe you," she whimpered, curling over until her brow touched their hands. Elanna moved her hand from Bala's shoulder to slowly stroke her hair, and leaned down until their head's touched. "I'm sorry, Bala," she whispered. "I'm so sorry."

Elanna didn't bother keeping track of time as Bala wailed, she simply stayed there, holding hands, stroking hair, waiting out the initial shock and pain until she could help Bala move somewhere safer.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I super, super, super hated Eanen and Godyna.


	8. Ash Mountain

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Collecting daedra hearts so they can rebind Balreth is an easy task for Elanna, but not a healthy one.

The smell of daedra blood and innards was familiar in its pungent sourness. However, years of exposure and practice left Elanna physically unaffected while she removed the last heart she needed from the scamp’s limp body. Mentally she was elsewhere, pushing against a wall of memories that wanted to come crashing down as the smell swamped her senses.

She had basic knowledge of daedric rituals, surface-level understanding. The creatures she knew far better. She knew how to butcher all manner of monsters and extract whatever parts she needed. It was one of the reasons her poisons were so potent and her remedies so effective. She knew just what to look for, how to mix it, and what plants would best compliment the properties of meatier ingredients.

Elanna had always had a knack for alchemy. It wasn’t until Harrus that magical and monstrous things entered the equation.

Nostrils flaring, she crushed the small heart in her palm, pulping the chambers and membranes between her fingers until it dripped from them. Flashes of dissected bodies and struggling 'patients' flit through her mind and her breaths came short and fast. Her hands weren't her own when she was down there with him,  _assisting_ in his experiments.

She learned a great many things because of him that she wished she could forget.

Deep breaths, Elanna reminded herself, slow, deep breaths.

She dropped the ruined heart and went in search for another scamp.


	9. Fleeting Pleasures

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Saving Ebonheart from itself and the Covenant was hard work but Elanna pulled it off in the end, it was only right she seek a little comfort in the aftermath...

The taverns of Ebonheart were alive with drunken laughter and song, grateful to be alive with the victory at Vivec’s Antlers and eager to finish the day in merriment.

Elanna found her own little corner in the warm interior of the Ebony Flask, quietly smoking a blend of lavender and chamomile to dull her nerves and keep her hands from shaking. Being noticed made her nervous, more so when errant soldiers wandered over and clapped her on the shoulders when they recognised her for stopping General Conele.

Such attention left her draining her fourth glass of sujamma, trying to push her mind somewhere hazy and uneventful, but her body was hardier than most would assume and it took more than that to get her fully intoxicated.

Elanna closed her eyes and leaned back in her chair, arms crossed, taking a long, weary drag on her pipe and slowly exhaling after a moment’s pause.

“You seem awfully lonely for a hero of the pact, Serjo.”

She opened her eyes at the husky voice to find a beautiful dunmer woman standing invitingly close, a warm smile on her lips. Elanna supposed the noise of the tavern drowned out any sound of approach and briefly wondered how easy it might have been to kill her in this state. Shaking off the thought, she straightened in her seat.

“I… don’t recall your name, I’m sorry.”

The smile remained. “My name is Bameli, my companion Amil and I help keep the patrons here happy and comfortable,” she lowered her voice towards the end and the smile became a smirk, “if they so desire.”

Elanna took another long drag of her pipe at that and regarded the ‘nightflower’ again. Bameli was a beautiful mer to be sure, wearing a simple dress that accentuated her curves and bust, with dark eyes that gleamed bright red in the torchlight and an increasingly winning curve to her lips.

Emptying her pipe into a bone ashtray, Elanna rose from her seat and noted she had at least a full head of height on Bameli. But she was on the abnormal side of the scale as dunmer went anyway, so it hardly surprised her. If the slight widening of eyes was anything to go by, it surprised Bameli, but experience and practice masked it quickly with another inviting look.

Bameli stepped closer and pressed a hand against Elanna’s abdomen, just above her belt. “Do you desire, Serjo?”

Warmth blossomed in her belly and sank between her thighs, the beginnings of an all too familiar ache. It was the last thing on her mind since waking up on Bleakrock, but right at that moment, relaxed from drink and smoke, Elanna desired. She desired quite a bit. So she lifted a hand to Bameli’s chin and leaned in just close enough to whisper, “I do.”

The hand against her stomach dipped into her belt and tugged, pulling her away from the table and the crowds.

She already had a room and payment was an easy, quick affair, she had little else to spend it on.

The door closed behind them, and Elanna quickly pinned Bameli to it, capturing her in a hard, hungry kiss. Slender arms wrapped around her shoulders and fingers slid into her hair, curling, tugging gently. She groaned and hooked her hands behind Bameli’s thighs, lifting her off the ground.

Bameli wrapped her legs around Elanna’s hips and broke their kiss, coaxing Elanna to tilt her head back, coating her throat in bites and kisses. It threatened to make Elanna’s knees buckle, and she grunted, pulling away from the door.

She moved them to the bed and set Bameli down, her deft hands making quick work of the dress. Bameli managed to strip off most of the leather covering Elanna’s upper body, her eyes drinking in limber musculature before Elanna insisted on attending to her first.

Bameli’s hand slid into her hair again. “Are you sure? I’m here to serve _you_ after all.”

Elanna traced a hand down the middle of Bameli’s chest, down between her breasts, and wrapped it around one. “I like to give,” she muttered, dipping her head to her captured prize. She took a pert nipple between her lips and the hand in her hair tightened. A gasp followed at the light catching of teeth, the swirl of a tongue, and Elanna let her hands wander, exploring the slopes and curves of Bameli’s slate-skinned form.

Nails digging into plush thighs, Elanna slid her hands around the curve of Bameli’s hips and gave her arse a greedy squeeze, earning a groan and a wriggle from the smaller woman.

She moved down, down, down, leaving a trail of dark marks as she went with her teeth and lips, pulling all manner of whimpers and gasps from Bameli that only served to stoke the fire at the crux of Elanna’s thighs. It wasn’t until the hand in her hair pulled that she looked up to find Bameli staring at her with hazy, lidded eyes and a coy smile. “You like to give,” she murmured, “but do you like to take orders?”

“If it pleases you.”

“Then I want you to turn me over and fuck me.”

The bluntness made the ache in her groin flare, and Elanna acted quickly. Bameli rolled onto her front, and Elanna pulled her hips up, sliding a palm down her spine until it stopped at the nape of her neck.

Elanna dropped her other hand between Bameli’s thighs and found them slick with arousal from her slit. A proud smirk briefly turned her lips, and Elanna easily plunged her fingers into the source, warm and eager, clutching at her probing digits.

Bameli shivered and curled her fingers into the bedsheets, her face flushed and beading with sweat.

The rhythm was slow as first, teasing and torturous, made to draw out every needy wriggle and clench it could before Bameli breathlessly told her to ‘get on with it.’ Elanna happily obliged, watching the expression on Bameli’s face gradually change from half-shut eyes and lip-biting to closed eyes and open-mouthed moaning.

When she seemed close, Elanna withdrew her hand and pulled Bameli up against her. There wasn’t time to complain or question, as Elanna reached around and found Bameli’s clit with her still slick fingers. She rubbed quick and vigorous circles with her middlemost fingers, pressing into the nerves beneath and causing Bameli to shout and go taut against her.

Bameli shuddered to a warm, wet end as she slumped in Elanna’s grasp, head against her shoulder, with a wide, satisfied smile. A sheen of arousal coated Bameli’s inner thighs, and Elanna brought up her hand and slowly licked her fingers clean to Bameli’s sultry amusement.

“Vestige!”

Elanna grabbed the knife under her pillow and whirled in an instant, putting herself between Bameli and the unexpected intruder before the voice even registered to her.

A cold sweat broke out across her face at seeing the Prophet’s ghostly visage, shattering the warmth and intimacy of the moment into something jagged and enfeebling.

She clenched her hands tight enough to shake and lose feeling. “Thank you for your company, Bameli,” she said flatly, despite the icy ball of sludge her stomach had become, “but I have unexpected business now.”

Bameli only needed a short moment to slip her dress over her head and hurry out of the room, shooting a bewildered look at Elanna and the ethereal figure who so rudely interrupted.

The door clicked shut, and Elanna threw her knife down, snarling. “What the _fuck_ is your problem?”

“There are more important matters than this.”

“It’s the middle of the fucking night!”

The Prophet shook his head with a disapproving frown. “I know where Lyris is being held, and we must act quickly to rescue her. Or would you rather she stay in Molag Bal’s clutches long enough for you to satisfy your baser urges?”

She wanted to punch him. She wanted to _scream_ and kick and beat him bloody for intruding, for _guilting,_ for shattering what little bit of life’s mundane pleasures she had experienced since escaping Coldharbour.

But she didn’t.

She exhaled slowly and turned away to begin dressing. “Fine.”

The Prophet canted his head. “Don’t forget that your unmoored soul makes the wayshrines available to you. Time is of the essence.” And with that he was gone, leaving her in the broken atmosphere of her room.

She clenched her jaw at his parting suggestion. The wayshrines were efficient for flitting back and forth as needed but using them made her feel like a sieve having ice water pushed through her. It just exaggerated the hole in her being until it was impossible to ignore.

Elanna grunted and pulled a vial of personal stimulant from her satchel. She’d need the alertness.


	10. Titanborn

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Going back to Coldharbour just sucks all around.

Elanna fell to her knees and wretched violently onto the ashen floor of the foundry. No sooner had she stepped through the portal did the hateful frigidity of Coldharbour perforate her insides like ground glass. A ball of ice weighed heavy in her chest where the knife entered and it trembled when she pushed herself to her feet, the twitching of a fly struggling in the web.

Pale, withered faces were everywhere, the Shriven stood clustered around work stations, going through the motions of slow, gruelling labour with slack, distant expressions.

The icy feeling spread at the sight of them and Elanna rubbed the heel of her hand against her sternum. She tried to ignore the sensation of some unfathomably deep chasm within her cracking open just that little bit wider and ripped her gaze from the lost souls surrounding her.

The Foundry of Woe was every bit as miserable as the name implied and Elanna kept her head down, skulking between protruding blades of stone and metal alike as the very architecture from walls to ceiling was built to catch the unaware and draw blood for their carelessness.

Thankfully, she spotted Lyris quickly and approached once there were no dremora nearby.

“Lyris!” Elanna hissed, ducking down by the workstation Lyris was working at. Blue eyes briefly flicked towards her, uncertain and afraid, and returned to the chunks of abyssal ore the Shriven were forced to work on.

Elanna scowled and grabbed Lyris’s wrist. The warmth of a living body must have taken her off-guard because Lyris looked at in surprise.

“You’re alive…?” Lyris murmured. Her eyes scanned the immediate area, wary, distant, she looked nothing like the warrior who broke Elanna out the first time. But Elanna hardly blamed her for that. “Are you really here, or is this another trick?”

Elanna kept her voice quiet but firm, careful of drawing attention. “I’m real, the Prophet is alive and he sent me to get you out of here.”

A look of fright cave over Lyris and she clenched her hands. “You can’t be here! They’ll find you and then we’ll both be stuck here forever.”

Elanna gently shook her arm, coaxing Lyris to look at her. “Listen to me, we’re both getting out of here this time. I don’t care what we have to do, okay?”

“You don’t understand. They’ve… _done_ something to me. I can’t leave.”

“If you explain it we can find a way to fix it.”

“It’s—my memories, my feelings, they’ve been _fragmented_. Ripped apart and scattered to different parts of the Foundry. And I’ve _tried!_ I _tried_ to get them back but the Daedra took everything. My willpower, my courage, my sense of self!”

Tears welled in Lyris’s eyes and she hung her head, shoulders slack. “I’m an empty shell. The fragments are reflections of my worst fears and most painful memories. I can’t… I don’t think I can face them.”

Elanna clenched her jaw and took Lyris’s hands in her own, moving closer. “Look at me. I’m shaking. I vomited as soon as I set foot in this place. I’m _fucking_ terrified but I’m _not_ leaving you here. You gave me another chance. If you hadn’t found me I’d still be here, rotting away, forgetting who I was and no one would ever fucking remember me. No one would care.” She squeezed Lyris’s hands tight. “We’re getting out of here,” she whispered fiercely. “We’ll face it together, I’ll be right by your side, I promise.”

Tear tracks glistened in the cold blue firelight down Lyris’s face and she breathed deep, her slack hands slowly tightening around Elanna’s. “Alright,” she muttered. “We can try.”

-

The biting hatred of Coldharbour fell away and Elanna staggered into the Harbourage, salt and ash hitting her first, then the warm, dry air. She slumped to her knees and dry heaved, pawing at the aching dip where it felt like an ice blade had buried itself to the hilt. A burning cold sensation had taken over the area, edging on numbness that ebbed and flowed into painful cold.

She pulled her leathers and shirt, expecting to find the area blackened and bleeding with frostbite, but the skin and flesh were fine. No blemish, no horrible, twisted lesions and rot, just the dip, in the indent from _his_ knife.

Large hands fell on her shoulders and Elanna allowed Lyris to help her to her feet, only to pull away and stagger towards the exit. “I need air,” she muttered, rubbing at her sternum again.


	11. Fort Virak

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> [CW: Gore]
> 
> Elanna experiences her first resurrection as the Vestige...

Garyn was a mage and a young one at that. He might be able to hold his own against passion-fuelled monsters like Balreth, but General Serien was a thinking creature, even in his monstrous necrotic war form.

A scattering of ice caught Garyn by the ankle and sent him flying, left him open. Elanna sprinted across the chamber and jumped onto Serien’s back, a wave of rot and mould washing over her. She sank her dagger into the back of Serien’s neck. The blade missed his spine, but she yanked sideways, pulling him off balance and dragging a pained roar from his gullet.

Garyn scrambled out of the way just in time to avoid being crushed under Serien’s heavy blows. His father helped him to his feet. Tanval was sweaty and grim-faced, blood staining his robes through a small puncture in his shoulder.

Holgunn stood with his shield raised and his sword arm lower than it should be. Blood dripped from the gauntlet holding it.

Serien bellowed and swung around, attempting to dislodge her and Elanna twisted her dagger until she felt it drag against something. Another roar and Serien reached back with far more mobility than any natural body should have. His shoulder cracked as he closed a meaty fist on Elanna’s arm before she could move away.

Wrenched from the general’s back, Elanna found herself slammed into the ground hard enough to break several ribs and shove the air from her lungs. Pain lanced through her back, and she was too stunned to roll when Serien raised his massive arms and brought them down on her with all his strength.

Blood gushed from her lips all at once as the cavities in her torso collapsed with a sharp wet crunching of bones. She couldn’t gasp, only gurgle as what tiny pockets of air remained slithered through the mash of organs and ribs. One of her legs juddered involuntarily, her nails scraped weakly at the cold stone masonry under her, and the world drained away into darkness.

. . .

Light exploded across her vision. Like all her puppet strings were pulled at once Elanna rose from the ground, vaporous, translucent and feeling colder than the depths of the northern seas in winter. Her ribs fused back together, her spine realigned itself, and her organs sucked back into their proper places.

She dropped.

Elanna landed on her feet, back within the keep of Fort Virak, the sound of battle raging both outside and in.

General Serien was still alive. His back turned to focus on Garyn, Tanval and Holgunn.

“Shor’s Bones…” Holgunn breathed, catching sight of her.

Nausea coiled her stomach into a tight, slimy knot, and when Serien turned to look at her she screamed and gathered all the energy she could into her right arm. She punched down and sent a snaking band of blood-red energy across the floor to Serien where it spiralled wildly into a ravenous sigil under his feet. As soon as all the lines connected it flashed, and a score of bright red thorns popped into the air around him, sinking into his flesh in pairs like vampiric fangs. The meat turned grey, and the sick knot in Elanna’s stomach eased as stolen strength flowed into her rattled body.

Serien fell to one knee under the attack and bellowed, punching the ground.

Her allies stared at her in a mixture of shock and bewilderment.

“Kill him!” she yelled, half expecting blood to fly from her lips again.

They launched into action, attacking as one while Serien was vulnerable and making short work of him. His revolting war form slumped to the ground, leaking necrotic fluids and bile across the dunmer stonework.

Elanna stumbled back until she hit a wall and slumped, driving the heel of her hand into her breastbone.

Holgunn approached her with the same look alarmed confusion, his one eye inspecting her for anything different. “You were dead,” he muttered distantly, frowning. “You were _dead._ ”

She didn’t respond to him, she had nothing to say, no answers—she didn’t want to talk to the Prophet, but he was the only one who might know or understand what the fuck just happened to her.

Her stomach tightened again.

“No! I refuse to fail so completely!” Serien’s voice range out with a strange echo.

Elanna pushed away from the wall, and Holgunn spun around in time to see Serien rise from his body as a spirit. She started to run towards him, calling the ever-hungry energies of soul magic to her hands, but it was too late. Garyn, inspecting that horrific form, was too close and too slow.

Serien struck the boy with a bolt of wild necrotic magic, lighting up every vein and artery throughout his body a sickly green. Garyn shrieked and started to convulse violently, bloody foam bubbling from his lips and nose.

Tanval barely had the time to hold his son before all of Garyn’s vessels burst open, screaming Garyn’s name and cradling the boy’s head to his chest. Tears cut harsh lines down Tanval’s face, twisted in a grimace, and a strangled cry slithered between his clenched teeth as Garyn remained limp and lifeless in his arms.

Elanna scraped her hands through her hair, trying to fight down the shakes working their way out of her stomach and failing while she stared at Garyn’s limp, bloody form. She turned away, reflexively spitting a string of expletives under her breath and gripping the back of her head and neck.

Holgunn started to talk, but Elanna didn’t make out the words, too caught up in her struggle to stay in control of herself. Tanval screamed “they killed my son!” and she flinched, screwing her eyes shut and forcing out tears of her own.

Garyn was a good lad. He shouldn’t have died like this.

How unfair it was for someone like her to come back.

The men’s voices became heated, yelling back and forth until Holgunn crumpled on the ground next to her in a clatter of armour. Elanna opened her eyes, snapped back into focus. She stared at Holgunn, at the blast of arcane residue across his breastplate, and turned in time to see Tanval sprinting from the keep.

With the Coral Heart in hand…


	12. To Kragenmoor

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> On her way to intercept Tanval, Elanna runs into some familiar faces...

Boethiah’s flaming tongue, she was getting a _name_ for herself, and Elanna tried to ease the knot in her stomach, walking up the hill into Kragemoor proper.

Morning sunlight peeked through the clouds overhead, slowly mixing with the plume of ash and smoke rising from the Tormented Spire. Elanna grimaced at the name and rubbed her arm.

‘Saviour of Davon’s Watch,’ he said, ‘the Virak Siege-breaker.’

Elanna shook her head and tried to put the interaction out of her mind as she passed through an archway flanked by two of Tanval’s Vanguard. He was going to get them all killed if he released Sadal, not just the Covenant.

“They’ve handled themselves well so far. We’ll be fine, Rana.”

Elanna straightened, stopping in her tracks at the voice of Seyne. She and Rana stood off the street to Elanna’s right, checking equipment and slips of parchment. They appeared no worse for wear and it didn’t take long for Rana to notice her.

“Elanna,” she said half-smiling. “It’s good to see you here, all things considered.” Rana lowered her voice, glancing towards the archway. “Are you passing through?”

Elanna moved off the street to stand with them and lowered her voice. “No, I came down from Virak to see if I could intercept a problem.”

Senye gave her a once over. “You look well for fighting the undead.”

It rose like a shark breaking the water, the memory of snapping bones, spearing through the flesh of her lungs and heart, muscle pulped and blood spraying from her lips like a burst waterskin.

Elanna swallowed hard and pushed it from the forefront of her thoughts. “I managed,” she said, clearing her throat. “Why are you here?”

Rana gestured with the parchment in her hands. “We finally have our orders. We’re being sent to Deshann to help with some local troubles there.”

“Can I ask what kind?”

“Nothing sensitive, friend, at least as far I’ve been told. There’s some kind of disease outbreak, and the local troops are having a hard time dealing with the situation. Command thinks a group of irregulars might be able to help.”

“Everyone’s with you then?”

“Yes.”

Elanna nodded slowly, turning the information over in her mind. “Good, good.” She frowned and crossed her arms. “Do you know anything about the disease or?”

Rana shook her head. “Unfortunately no. I’m hoping its nothing too serious, but it wouldn’t be a problem if it weren’t.”

Nodding once, Elanna threw another glance over her shoulder at the archway. One of the Vanguard was watching them. “I should get going,” she murmured. “Stay in one piece.”

Senya and Rana both gave her a courteous head bow, and the latter smiled grimly. “You as well, friend. Honour and justice.”

 


	13. Out of the Spire

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Elanna and Holgunn reflect on the events of the last few days...

The atmosphere of The Hissing Guar’s tavern could have smothered a mammoth, dense with bittersweet singing amongst the surviving soldiers, trying to forget their comrades in arms burning before their eyes with drink and song.

Elanna exhaled lavender-scented smoke into the room, slumped in a chair across from Holgunn, both contemplating the day’s events in mutual, respective silence despite the shared table.

The loss of life would have been far greater had they failed, but the turn of events still left a sour taste in the mouth.

“What happened back at Virak?”

Holgunn’s question cut through the haze and Elanna blinked, sending him a guarded look. Exhaustion etched his face, pinching at the corners of his mouth and the curve of his brow with sombre resignation. “We all saw you die,” he said, “now it’s just me. Who would I tell? Who would believe me?”

“I don’t know,” she blurted it out, frowning.

“It’s never happened before?”

“No.”

He grunted, swirling the mead in his flagon. “People don’t just pop  back to life after getting crushed like that.”

Grimacing, she answered firmly, “no. They don’t.”

Frustration flared his nostrils, and a hard, flintiness settled in his eyes, lips pressing together in a tight line. Elanna continued to hold his stare. “If I understood what was happening to me, I’d say it. But I don’t.”

Holgunn grunted again and drained his flagon. His shoulders slackened, chin dipping towards his chest while his eyes slid and bored into the table.

Taking a long drag of her pipe, Elanna held it briefly and exhaled another stream of white smoke. “You want to know why the others didn’t come back like I did.”

“That’s not what I—”

“Spare me. He was your friend. They were your soldiers, under your command, your responsibility.”

“I… yes. Fine, yes. Tanval was a good friend. His boy didn’t deserve to die like that.”

Holgunn paused, grimacing, slowly grinding his teeth. He shook his head, screwing his eyes shut.  “I wonder what I could have done differently. I keep thinking and thinking, and it escapes me. I thought I did everything right.”

She nodded slowly, past mistakes and failures flitting at the back of her thoughts. Elanna strangled them before they could become too recent. “Sometimes you can do everything right and still lose, and it fucking hurts. Tanval made a choice, and we had to deal with that. I don’t think there was anything else you could’ve done, Holgunn. We’re alive, Sadal is bound, and Stonefalls is safe for the time being.”

Holgunn said nothing for a moment, sitting quietly amidst the din of slurred singing and cheering before he nodded once. “True enough. But it will take a while for this to scab over. For now, we drink.” He rose from his chair, flagons in hand, and left for another round of mead.


	14. Essence

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Elanna has questions for the Prophet.

The sound of a lute greeted Elanna upon entering the old ruins of the Harbourage, the pretty melody at odds with the clandestine nature of the place and her sour feelings. Lyris was the source, standing by a lit brazier and staring at the flames while she plucked the strings. It was only when Elanna passed the threshold of the main chamber that Lyris looked at her and nodded in greeting. Elanna returned the gesture and walked towards the Prophet, settled in his chair as usual.

"Vestige," he started, his brow furrowing deeply, "I'm glad to see you are safe, it means good fortune has not abandoned us entirely."

"My name," Elanna responded bluntly. "I have a name. Use it."

The melody stuttered for a moment and Elanna felt Lyris's eyes on her again. The Prophet stared through her briefly and nodded. "Very well, Elanna."

She held up her hands to keep him from speaking and he raised a brow. "Before you tell me what's happened now, I have questions of my own."

His frown returned. "There are dark forces at work but I will answer you if it is within my power to do so."

There were always dark forces at work, mundane or magic, but Elanna restrained herself from saying that out loud. "I died," she said, strangling her tone of voice into something flat and firm. "Again."

"What?" Alarm coloured Lyris's voice and she stopped playing entirely.

Elanna didn't elaborate, not yet, she watched the Prophet closely while a knowing look softened his haggard features. "Ah, another feature of your particular circumstances. Not too different from daedra, they lack souls of their own and when their physical forms are destroyed they can reform from the essence of their home plane." He tilted his head, appearing to look her over. "Or from whence their soul is kept, in your case. How long ago was this?"

Uncomfortable pressure formed a knot in her throat and Elanna pursed her lips. "Three days, I returned moments after it happened."

"Moments?"

"Yes. The fight only had a few participants and my... my killer was still there. A minute had passed, maybe less."

"Intriguing..."

Elanna baulked at that. "Intriguing?" she spat, clenching her hands. 

Before she could do anything else, Lyris's hand closed on her shoulder. "Easy, friend." It was said reassuringly but Elanna knew Lyris would throw her across the room without a second's hesitation if it looked like she was going to attack the Prophet. It was a tempting thought, worthy of a few seconds daydream, but she also knew it was her anger and stress talking.

Forcibly relaxing her hands, Elanna propped them on her hips instead. "Nevermind, have you had any luck with Sai Sahan?"


	15. The Serk

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Elanna arrives in Deshaan...

Serkamora was the first stop most travellers made on the road to Mournhold and Elanna was no different. She had a letter to deliver and a plague to investigate. What little information she had to hand scratched at the back of her mind, urging her to take a look for herself, just in case.

However, as she crossed the threshold into town, a pair of arguing dunmer blocked her way. A scowling woman in a red shirt, her dark red hair in a low bun, and a gangly, hawkish looking man in a drab robe.

“No! Their condition is too delicate for people to be trampling around and crowding them. For the last time, you’ll just have to be patient!”

That was all Elanna caught before the man spun on his heel and marched back towards the graveyard. The old ruins were closed off by comparatively new log walls, and a pair of nondescript guards opened a small door in the gate to let him in.

Frowning, Elanna slowly approached and cleared her throat. The woman sent her a sharp glare, looking her up and down, and turned to face her.

“Who are you? Did the Tribunal send you?”

“My name is Elanna, and no.”

The woman hung her head, cursing. “Damn it, I’ve sent multiple requests, why won’t they answer?” She folded her arms and gave Elanna another once over. “No matter, you look capable enough.”

Elanna lifted her hands, motioning for the woman to slow down. “Why don’t you tell me who you are and what’s going on before I agree to anything?”

“Aerona. Aerona Berendas. In place of my absentee brother, I’m holding the Serk together, for now.”

“And where is your brother?”

“That’s what I want to know, but our main issue here is the Llodos plague. It reached us right before the Maulborn arrived.”

Aerona gestured loosely to the walled-off graveyard. Other than the two guards at the gate, a handful of others patrolled the perimeter, hands resting near weapons. Desperate people huddled near the gate, slumped on the ground, held up by loved ones, or holding themselves alone, staring at the gate in plaintive misery. An air of death clung to the area.

Wrinkling her nose, Elanna filed her observations away for later. “Are they here to help?” she asked slowly, raising a brow.

A sour look pinched Aerona’s features. “How could you tell?” she muttered. “I don’t trust them. They claim they have a cure, they claim they’re here to help, but no one has recovered since they arrived.”

“How long have they been here?”

“Just under a fortnight. The plague struck about a day before.”

Elanna winced, turning her head away from the graveyard to mutter. “That timing is certainly… unfortunate. How can I help?”

* * *

Going door to door wasn’t just to ask after Aerona’s brother, Dethisam, but gave Elanna a broad selection of people to inspect and make mental notes about.

Initial symptoms appeared to be a mild fever coupled with random aches and pains, along with an insatiable appetite. The second stage progressed into a high fever, weakness, nausea, wracking pain throughout the body, and the development of open sores across the skin. Close inspection of early development and late development revealed the sores to become increasingly necrotic in nature, causing a distinctive smell that signified a victim’s worsening condition. The sores wept clear fluid for the first couple of days before turning a milky yellow, and finally blood and broken down tissue.

Additionally, the appetite from stage one disappeared once the sores formed, with difficulty eating, and an aversion to water the likes of which reminded Elanna of rabies.

The third stage seemed to be the point of no return. The sores became widespread to the point of disfigurement, the pain reached exhausting heights, the fever burned hot enough to induce delirium and hallucinations as the victim’s brain began to cook. Once all that set in, it was only a matter of time before the body finally gave in.

If that were all, Elanna would be worried. The plague caused a drawn-out, miserable death for those afflicted by it and there was yet to be an effective cure.

It wasn’t until they searched the second floor of a quarantined house for the sick and found an honest-to-gods zombie staggering around that Elanna became alarmed.

‘Grell,’ as Aerona cried in dismay, lurched towards them absolutely _cratered_ by rotting sores. His jaw nearly unhinged as it opened to bite, arms outstretched and blackened with rot, necrotic slime oozing from his gums.

Elanna dispatched him with surgical detachment, severing the spinal column with a blade directly through the throat. She kicked him in the chest, putting space between herself the body as whatever foul energy animated it was snuffed out, leaving the meat to deflate and slowly liquefy.

This was no normal plague.


	16. Parallel

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Elanna interrupts an interrogation...

Whilst Elanna insisted on spending another day at the Serk to help distribute the suppressant to the afflicted who were most at risk, Nilyne was a competent enough alchemist to handle the people's needs in Serkamora without her. As experienced as Elanna was in alchemy and doctoring, she was more useful unearthing information and elimination, which was why she found herself navigating the streets of Narsis to get a feel for the disposition of its citizens. Paranoia and fear lay heavy on them and rumours flowed thick and fast as to where missing loved ones may have gone.

Entering the kinhouse only to witness a fierce argument between Councilor's Ralden and Sadri gave away the stress of the situation. More and more people were falling ill, disappearing, or both, and no one seemed to know what to do about it. Trust was hard to come by when no one hand answers.

 _"No one has actually seen any of these people **leave** Narsis,"_ Ralden told her, concern and frustration creasing his aged features.  _"If you can prove these claims are more than just fearful delusions, report back to me immediately. You'll be rewarded."_

So she made her rounds again speaking to many different people and returning to those who stood out. A missing apprentice, a deeply incriminating journal, and tampered shipments, the last of which lead to a Maulborn agent in normal clothes to try and jump her, to no success. She was being watched, followed, or both--probably both. But it the Maulborn wanted her dead they needed to try harder than that.

It wasn't until she looked into the seemingly mundane matter of an absent, drunk husband that the situation gained an extra layer of complexity.

"One more lie and I make you stop talking. Permanently. Understand?"

A woman's voice reached her as she searched an abandoned house, husky and laced with stone-cold threat. It came from the open stairs leading to the cellar and Elanna slowly crept down them, one hand resting on a dagger, the other keeping her balance.

Across the room, a wide-eyed and scruffy looking male dunmer sat uncomfortably in a lone chair, hands clenched tightly to his knees, sweating profusely, and staring up at the dark-clad woman looming over him. Her armour was dunmeri in design and made to blend in with the shadows, and she slowly twirled a pair of daggers to ratchet his fear ever higher.

Elanna managed to reach the bottom of the stairs before his eyes flicked to her. 

The mysterious woman turned sharply, red eyes and ashen skin giving away her shared heritage with them. She lifted her daggers to both them, brows pinching, and spoke with no small amount of irritation, "I have no intention of letting an amateur screw up my investigation. Turn around and walk away.  _Now._ "

"Easy." Elanna slowly straightened, lifting her hand away from her dagger. Now that she was closer she couldn't smell anything decaying or sulphurous about the woman, and she wondered if Ralden lied to her about not making a habit of hiring mercenaries. "Given everything that's going on, you'll have to forgive me for thinking that this looks just a  _bit_ suspicious. Care to explain?"

Narrowing eyes fixed her with a flinty glare. "All you need to understand is that you're interrupting my interrogation. And just as I was about to get to my favourite part." The woman thrust her chin towards the stairs. "I have no quarrel with you. Not yet. So go away."

Elanna grimaced and stood her ground. "Councilor Ralden asked me to look into the disappearances. Now, you don't smell like Maulborn,  but this still looks suspicious. I want to help, I came up from the Serk and I've fought both the Maulborn and the monsters they create. This doesn't have to be difficult."

The woman gave her a once over, measuring Elanna for her worth, her threat, and whether it should be taken seriously. Elanna didn't want a fight, not if there didn't need to be one, but the situation was ambiguous at best.

Finally, the mystery woman exhaled slowly and lowered the dagger pointed at Elanna. "Listen to me closely," she said in a much smoother tone than before. "You and I are on the same side here. I've been hired to track down the origins of the Llodos plague."

Elanna gestured to terrified man. "What do he have to do with it?"

"We've linked shipments to him. He refuses to talk, but I've never met a man I couldn't break."

"His wife is looking for him."

"If he behaves, I'll return him."

The woman sheathed her free dagger and pulled a rolled-up letter from a belt pouch, holding it out to Elanna. "Take this to Councilor Ralden. It explains how vials of the plague were shipped into Narsis."

Elanna stared at the proferred letter, to the woman, to Evis, and back again. She slowly took the letter and backed away to the stairs.

The woman watched her go until she was out of sight.


	17. Blinkered

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Elanna runs into the mysterious dunmer woman again and realises how unfocused she is...

Nighttime was a source of comfort and tension in equal measure and Elanna tried to stuff her feelings into as tight a box as she could manage. She needed to concentrate on thinning the  Maulborn numbers, quietly stalking from one camp to the next, methodically working her way towards Lake Hlaalu until blood clouded its shallows. There was a rhythm to it, distraction, division, death, distraction, division, death, that experience and magic helped make far easier than she was used to.

Wrapping darkness around her body and stealing life from her enemies, such powers were more familiar to Elanna than the soul magic, yet they still came with surprises. She was growing stronger, whether it was the aetherial shards or her experience with Coldharbour itself, Elanna couldn't decide and refused to give herself the peace and quiet to dwell on the matter. Nothing good came of thinking about that wretched place or the horrors residing within.

Something deep inside her squirmed at the inevitability of returning.

Elanna lunged with a snarl, driving a blade of ravenous red energy into the spine of a witless Maulborn. His thin frame lurched and she wrapped an arm around his throat, squeezing hard until he slipped limp and lifeless from her grasp. He seemed to be the last of them as far as she could tell and there was only one thing left to do.

Correspondence from the camps indicated a concentration of plague mixture at a waterfall feeding into the lake and it didn't take long for Elanna to find it. Slick, broken crates and glass vials littered the bottom of the waterfall and a yellow-green substance lingered in sour, rotten smelling ropes, clinging the rocks and broken wood like putrid algae.

Crouching at the water's edge, Elanna briefly entertained collecting a sample but she had no safe means of doing so. 

"You don't give up do you?"

She sprang to her feet and spun around, calling a red blade to hand.

No more than ten feet away stood a woman in dark leathers, a hood pulled over her head, red eyes twinkling in the torchlight. She lifted her hands in a mock gesture of surrender and the smile in her voice was obvious, "now, now, I thought you wanted to be friends?"

Elanna blinked, recognising the voice--it was the woman who interrogated Evis. She dismissed the blade and slowly lowered her hand. The woman held up a finger before she could talk. "Before you ask, yes, I've been following you. No, I have nothing to do with the missing people or the plague. And no,  I'm not here to fight you. There, that's out of the way. Feel better? Now let's talk about why Giron wants you dead."

Words escaped Elanna, leaving a thorn tangle in their absence. Giron asked her to cut down the Maulborn and uncover any information she could--she wondered what the woman had to gain from this. The knowledge that she'd been stalked the entire time without ever realising it made her stomach twist and Elanna clenched her jaw.

The stranger looked her over. "I doubt he would have sent you here had he realised you're no common mercenary."

"Why?" Elanna croaked, ready for the ground to fall out from under her. She should have realised. She should have thought something was off about Giron's request but she was losing count of the times someone asked her to do something anyone with more sense or less pride would have considered too dangerous. She couldn't die, not really.

She didn't want to experience it again.

The stranger raised an eyebrow at her, disappointed perhaps. "Isn't it obvious? If they killed you, you'd never find out that _he_ brought the plague to Narsis, would you?"

Elanna slowly shook her head, fighting down the urge to rub at her sternum. "No. No, I get _that_. Why are you helping me? What do you get out of this?"

The disappointment faded, replaced by something scrutinising and guarded. "I told you, we're on the same side."

"So you followed me."

"Are you trying to say mysterious women have never followed you at night before?"

Elanna shook her head at the teasing deflection and tried to keep her breathing in check. "What do I call you?"

The answer was surprisingly forthcoming. "Naryu, and no, I don't know your name already."

Sighing, Elanna finally broke eye contact and looked out at the lake. "Elanna."

Naryu crossed her arms. "Wonderful. Now, to properly answer your question. The organisation I belong to does two things: finds targets and eliminates targets. _My_ target happens to be connected to the Llodos plague. Our goals overlap. I've been watching Narsis for weeks. We even have an agent inside the kinhouse. Anything that enters or leaves Narsis is tracked, and those broken crates have Giron's name written all over them. I saw you picking through the camps, so what did you find?"

Numbly, Elanna handed over the notes and orders she collected, silently watching Naryu speed read through them with a deepening frown. "This doesn't look good. There must be a reason why Giron wanted Narsis sealed and why he wanted you dead."

"He expects me to get in the way."

"But in the way of what? You need to get back to Narsis and find out. I'm sure he'll be delighted to see you're more trouble than he thought."

Feeling more than a little nauseous, Elanna smiled sourly and began walking back to the city.


End file.
